Finding Atlas
by The Blearing Phoenix
Summary: Katniss Everdeen is a sixteen year old suffering from bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. How does she cope when her father dies from cancer? How does Peeta, her long-time boyfriend save her from herself? AU. Pairing may change. Rating may change.
1. rain

Prompt: rainy day

Time: 15 minutes

I.

Katniss breathed all shallow and light. Her fingers tangled in her mane of dark hair. Sweat clung to her forehead and the air smelled like morning dew and the rawness of rainwater. The TV blared softly behind her and she turned around to catch the remnants of a SpongeBob episode. Sheets of rain drummed against the tiled roof and her breath hitched in her throat. Any moment now—any moment now she would get the warning call. There was a haphazardly opened box of tangled Christmas lights at the foot of her canopy bed. Per tradition, Katniss liked to drape them around the bedposts and plug the lights into her outlets. It was like early Christmas in her bedroom all year round.

But something stopped her today.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to relax. _Control your breathing. Slow down your breathing. Clench your fists and unfurl them._ She tried to memorize the techniques she'd learned in her DBT and Mindfulness groups. Her dark eyes caught the sight of her blue stress ball nestled in her comforter. It was fall. Fall meant cold weather and sheets of pelting rain like ice needles. Fall meant crunchy vividly colored leaves of vermilion and splashes of tangerines and ocher.

She couldn't stop it though … all she'd wanted to do was successfully visit her father's grave. That's all she'd meant to do. She couldn't even do that though. She'd sat in her mother's silver Nissan and clenched her hands bone-knuckle-white against the armrests peering through raindrops at the whitewashed tombstone of her father. _James Everdeen – loving father, devoted husband, admirable lawyer. 1964-2012. _His life was reduced to the finality of that dash in between the years he'd come into the world and the year he'd exited it.

She couldn't do it . Not with her mom's incessant pleas ("Please Katniss, you're doing so well, making such progress, please sweetie. You have to face it sometime. I'll go with you. I'll place the daisies at the tombstone. Your father loved daisies. He loved getting his hands dirty when he gardened. And remember that time when you spent the whole afternoon planting with him? It was his therapy. It was your therapy. Just think of those happier times for me. Please Kat, do it for me?") _No, no, no, no, no_.

_ Relax_.

She counted in her head backwards: _Ten …_ starting from ten and downwards—slowly so as not to disorient and further upset the chaotic "balance" of her mind as her therapist referred to it. Speaking of—no, she didn't have to call Cinna this instant. She could quell this beast. She could stop it. Her hands were tremulous as she reached out and plucked her blue friend up from her bed. It would calm her. It always did.

Katniss had even taken to naming the ball—Charlie—after one of her favorite characters from one of her favorite books. She couldn't totally relate to Charlie because she'd never been sexually abused as a child and never ever hoped to be in her 16 sixteen years of life but … she could relate to his sadness and sense of being misunderstood. His wanting to not get too close to people—she could understand that. It was her need to get lost somewhere—even if it was in the soft plopping noises of falling rain descending on the earth.

Her fingers dug into the ball because if it wasn't the ball today it would've been her bruised and bloodied palms tomorrow. Half moon marks a testament to her suffering. _Six … Five …_ when had she counted down to six? There was the frenetic pounding of bare feet coming up the stairs.

"The dramatic ascendance," as one of her favorite authors would've coined it.

Katniss moaned and bit her bottom lip. _Good girl, good girl, relax, don't tense your shoulders_. Automatically her shoulders jutted up like rocks bursting forth from the ground—like the shifting of tectonic plates—sudden and irreversible. It was nature's work … nature's way. Her breathing became shallower.

_ What if he comes in and sees—_the quick jiggling and turning of the knob. The deep throaty voice turning muffled. "Kat … I'm coming in okay? Is that alright?" The envisioning of his body all lanky limbs and long torso ; his mop of unruly hair the color of sunflowers, his skin a tinge of baked bronze from spending more time climbing rock and earth than being in his Challenger. His Challenger—it smelled like him—like Irish Spring soap and the smell of clods of wet dirt and clay.

"I g-guess," when had her voice turned so tiny and faraway? It was like she was calling out from some far off chain of cliffs down to him. _What if he sees me clenching this ball and … Four … Three …_ She exhaled shakily and her chest tightened. In her mind she saw a blood vessel rupturing , the flooding rush of hemoglobin and water … blood platelets … blood. She saw her father's eyes roll back to the starchy whiteness of his … saw him dying … gasping for breath … the incessant beep of the EKG monitor flat lining.

"Kat I'm not warning you now, I'm just going to come in…," the knob turning … hazel eyes a mixture of drizzled honey and mossy green. His eyes focused in on her. Zoomed in like the zoom function of one of those fancy Nikon cameras he had. The ones he used to take nature photography shots with. He was really good at it.

"Peeta … I …," and then she started collapsing into a fit of sharp gasps and her chest constricted tightly—painfully. It was like someone had twisted her stomach into a fit of tightened coiled wire and had let it contract—spring suddenly. Katniss rocked back and forth, pressed her heels together, leaned over until her stomach collected into rolls of skin and she counted out loud this time.

"Ten … nine … eight … seven … six," her world became a suffusion of sound and muffled colors. Tears fogged her vision and blurred it; she swiped hastily and furiously at her eyes and clawed at her palms.

"Mrs. Everdeen, she's starting to panic," And then he was all around her and on top of her and she smelled the clinging scent of Irish Spring saturated like tattoo ink into his skin. She inhaled the sharp tang of chemical components and artificial fragrances and dyes. She clung to his tattered thrift shop shirt. He'd cut the holes where the sleeves had been himself. It was flimsy rain soaked cotton. His overalls were two sizes too big and he wore a woven belt of various dyed leathers around his slender waist. Her palms rested against the nape of his neck. It was his warmth—what she craved.

And then he began the mantra he'd learned with her during a group session: A mindfulness technique that could be recited to her when she started to lose her sense of being grounded. It was something to ground her, something to keep her whole and aware and _present_. Stay present.

"It's okay; you're in your safe place … focus on the sounds of the raindrops against the pavement … against the roof around you. Focus on the smells around you, feel the warmth… you are here … in your safe place. Your room is your safe space. Your room is your safe space. Your _home_ is your safe space," his voice sounded like there were bits of gravel being struck and dragged across sandpaper . It was rough and fractured around the edges.

The loosely curled bun of her mother's hair came into her focus. She smelled the shampoo in her mother's damp hair. A fluffy white towel was draped around her head but the soft curls still clung to her pale forehead.

"Oh god sweetie what happened?"

"She's panicking Mrs. Everdeen I'm trying to calm her down," the boy with the blue eyes—more of a man-boy really explained. He rubbed warmth into Katniss's knees, into her palms and elbows, into the pressure point pulsing against her neck—her carotid artery. Her mother set a dish of ice water by the bed and turned off on her daughter's phone. This was routine and ritual. Mother and boyfriend had walked through the mysterious door of their loved one's mind and had been locked inside with the complexities of her often irrational spasmodic thoughts.

"Mom I—I can't control it. I'm so sorry mom," Katniss forced spat out desperately and she clutched her boyfriend's hands urgently, feeling for the cuts and scrapes and scabs that made him natural and tangible and so felt and warm. She watched as her mother sat on the edge of the bed, continuously she rocked back and forth, her voice coming out in broken patches of hoarseness—fragile and torn from misuse. Katniss clutched onto Charlie for dear life, having pulled away from her boyfriend a while ago.

"Peeta," she breathed out and his eyes softened and he watched her with a tender expression, how a father would watch his peacefully sleeping baby. It was akin to that, yes.

"Katniss," he enunciated her name softly although it edged out with his characteristic sandpaper voice. And all she could do was rock back and forth. Rock back and forth, rhythmically, matching her pacing with the seemingly syncopated dropping of rain. Peeta placed his hands on her shoulder, warm and calloused from his days spent playing hide-and-go-seek in the woods.

"You're alright?"

"I'm alright," a small smile graced her lips and she breathed out and shook out the nervous energy out of her limbs, cracking her knuckles and shaking her tremulous legs.

"I'll make you some tea, alright? I mean I _was_ gonna have you dip your hands in this ice water like Kathryn instructed us to but … no need. Good job Peeta, got her calmed down faster than I've been able to in months," Mrs. Everdeen's smile was small and sad and watery although her tears didn't fall. Death—it blanketed the room like some cold fog spreading like a mantle over rolling hills. It was some unwelcome visitor that descended on Katniss's safe space.

_Safe space—haven—safe place—_all terms coined by her wonderful therapist —really it was just a method for the panicked individual to ground themselves and take a mental note of their surroundings. It was a way to hit the 'pause' button and be cognizant of sharp sounds and smells, vivid colors and various patterns … things like that—sensory things.

"Tea would be good thanks," Katniss shuddered. She felt the squirming sickening sensation of bile rising up in her throat which was characteristic of the aftermaths of her panic attacks.

"Alright I'll make some chamomile—good for the nerves—get all that energy out of your system. Stay with her won't you?" Mrs. Everdeen suddenly looked tired and she passed her hands over her eyes, pulled taut by the faint crinkling of crow's feet. Age was wearing her skin paper thin and her veins and patience even thinner. Still, she fought through the urge to scream for her daughter—she tried to understand and sympathize because she couldn't lose someone else even if it was through … unnatural causes. She couldn't bear …

"I'll stay."

"Great, thanks and Kat," a nest of dark curly hair flopped backwards as piercing brown eyes watched her mother. They looked nothing alike. Katniss had gotten her exotic features—the pudgy cheeks splattered with light honey hued freckles, the amber hue of her eyes and the pout in her lower lip from her father. Peeta loved her ingenuity with oil paints, acrylics and oil pastels and he loved her passion for nature, art and hunting and sports. He loved her dorkiness. He loved her everything down to the moles on her toes and the imbalance in her brain. It was an imbalance in her brain. It was a chemical glitch in her brain.

"… Don't ever be sorry."

And her door shut with a sharp metallic click.


	2. betrayal

2. betrayal

Disclaimer: Once again, I do not own the intellectual properties of Katniss or any of the other characters mentioned in this fic, those all belong to the wonderful

Suzanne Collins. Read and review and I shall try and return the favor.

Katniss seated herself in one of the velvet armchairs in her therapist's office. She was preoccupied with gnawing on her quick-bitten nails in total nervousness. Mrs. Everdeen had dropped her daughter off and she'd shakily downed a bottle of water, guzzling it while she took her anti anxiety medication. Katniss had profusely declined to take the proffered meds. They weren't hers she'd rightfully protested. She wasn't going to take them and eventually abuse them. Now, twenty minutes later, away from her ranch house, she was here. She was sorely missing her deceased father and she detested her agoraphobic mother.

"Katniss, how are you feeling today? I just wanted to do a quick check-in of your mood so let's start with that."

Cinna was her meticulously dressed therapist. He was calm, collected and a keen and observant person. Her therapist was businesslike and looked like he was good with his hands. He had long fingers—long painter's fingers. Katniss shook her head, focused on the feel of Peeta's warm mouth against her chapped ones—how good that felt—how he tasted like _bread_. Cinna was pensive now. You could tell by the way he tapped his pen to the corner of his mouth habitually and occasionally glanced at what must have been a blank and exposed notepad on his lap. He was ruminating, that's what it meant.

"I'm feeling angry and betrayed. I have to cook and clean for my little sister Prim, make sure her clothes are washed, make sure she catches the bus on time, and make sure she eats a good packed lunch. Then I have to make a run to the welfare office and pick up our checks for the week and get our food stamps and then I have to restock on groceries and buy dog food for Buttercup. Then I have to go to work and pay for rent with mom's disability check because her lazy ass won't fucking do it, and my paycheck—most of it goes to utilities. So that's why I'm pissed off and seething," indeed Katniss was seething.

Her legs shook and she tapped her left foot restlessly and almost ritualistically. It was like a part of an unspoken order that her body dictated to her. She _had_ to do it to feel some degree of normalcy and control. Control in her movements and in her thoughts was important to her because she certainly couldn't control her mood. She missed Charlie because she could clench her fists around him and will her dad's smoky coal gray eyes into her head. Now all she saw were her mother's forget me not blues and it pained her and simultaneously angered her. Her fucking mom though …

"So you feel invalidated?"

Katniss resumed gnawing her bottom lip until the skin broke and then she proceeded to suck the blood in a vampiric manner. Therapy was truly her only balm and escape for her wounds and for her to heal. It was where she could be meditative, unkind and kind and reflective towards herself. It was truly her only safe space—her only haven. Home was a dwelling that was cold and a distant unattainable memory. This was where she could splay out the contents of her damaged past and present to Cinna and he would ungrudgingly, even kindly and patiently assist her in unearthing the answers. That's all she'd wanted—answers. Like why she couldn't fucking visit her dad's grave without wanting to throw up and curl into a ball and cry herself to sleep in fetal.

"Of course I feel invalidated. I feel like shit, I'm feeling angry and betrayed. I do and do and do and the only people to really give a crap about how much I do would be my friends, Clove, Thresh, Foxface as I call her and Finnick and Peeta and Prim."

"That's quite a lot of—"

"But my mom, at home, she's two different people. When I'm panicking she's sweet and nurturing and playing nurse with me. She's fixing up hot compasses for my forehead when I break into sweats and near fever chills. She's rubbing my shoulder to get the tenseness out of them. She's fixing me tea and hot soup with wild mushrooms and onions. Then as soon as that ends she's back to her bedridden moping, weak, insipid self and it pisses me off because I fucking _love_ her and she doesn't do jack shit to help us or let me take a step back and stop playing provider and father and play the role of daughter."

Cinna scribbled this all down hurriedly in a quick and neat sort of handwriting. Katniss remembered the remnants of what she could recall of her father's handwriting as messy and partially illegible. She missed that facet of him too. She missed the smell of his aftershave when he pulled his girls into a long lasting embrace after a long day at work at the factory. It was the littlest things she missed and she knew Prim missed it too, she knew that.

"And Katniss let's explore that for a moment. Besides the invalidation, how does that also make you feel?"

"Like I said, pissed off and betrayed."

"And those are completely valid. Maybe consider erecting some boundaries with your mother. Something like," he crinkled his gold-rimmed chocolate brown eyes. Katniss had to refrain from jumping out of her seat and kissing him. Her lips twitched and her hand trembled. She was excitedly nervous. "…like 'Mom it really frustrates me that you don't meet me halfway. I'd really like it if we could cook together today and prepare a meal. Maybe Prim could help out."

As much as Katniss adored Cinna for being so patient and kind and dare she say it _fatherly_, she really wanted to tell him how dumb that idea was. So she did.

Her session ended ten minutes earlier than usual.

-.-

"How'd it go Kat?" Peeta revved the engine as soon as he saw her and his grin turned into a frown. She looked and felt downright miserable. Her mood wasn't elevated and she needed a pick-me-up.

"Coffee—black, medium roasted, straight from Starbucks, like a mocha latte would be wonderful right now."

She didn't tell Peeta how she felt because it was easier to lock her feelings away in her metaphorical safe vault than tell him how much she wanted to feel someone else's skin against hers—warm and sinewy with rippling muscle underneath.

Her phone buzzed. Katniss snatched it up before Peeta could find some excuse to probe further into her ruined home life and therapy session. It was Finnick.


	3. kiss

3. kiss

Disclaimer: I don't own the intellectual properties of Katniss and Finn or Peeta but I do own Finn's mother and her grief and all this mention of death. Everything else is property of Suzanne Collins.

This was where Finnick came in. It was inevitable. It always was. Katniss would respond to his texts amicably, even excitedly. Her mood would shift to absolute optimism. There was no finality to it though because as soon as he dropped her off in front of her complex reality left an acrid taste in her mouth. It was the reality of walking into desolateness. The reality of responsibility weighing down on strong shoulders honed from years of soccer practice and archery classes. It was responsibility and obligation to Prim's hungry stomach and her mother possibly starving and her little sister's light possibly dying inside. She had no choice. No choice. She could kill a deer without so much as batting an eyelash but she couldn't resist the flesh of one Finnick Odair, arguably the handsomest and most sought after boy in her school. That's why she did it that was that.

If only Clove and Foxface knew—they'd hound her for days for details. It was their little arrangement, she thought as she climbed up the steps to the Odair mansion. No one was supposed to know. She'd told Peeta she had a prior engagement with Clove and her girls—a movie—_The Avengers _was playing and she absolutely _could not_ miss it. But truth was she could for a little sin in heated flesh and sweat and burying her feelings in teeth marks and nail imprints. She could.

"Hi Mrs. Odair is your son home?" Katniss smiled up at the woman with peppered golden hair that answered the door. Finnick undoubtedly inherited his breath-stealing looks from the woman with the proud and regal stature. Her features were refined and eagle-sharp and classically beautiful in the same way her son was all of those things as well.

"Yes, he's out back," and then the smile dropped and she'd only asked Katniss was a little hungry and if she'd please stay and all Katniss had to do … all she had to do was to look at the urn and realize …

Finnick had lost something too. She had to remind herself of the pain they buried in each other.

-.-

Manic.

She knew she was when she saw Finnick and rushed over to him and bowled him over in a crushing hug. His hands easily dropped the hoe he was using to till the earth out back. He smelled like clods of wet dirt and earth. He smelled like nature. She loved it. It reminded her strongly of Peeta. Sometimes she'd pretend he was Peeta. Sometimes she wouldn't care. Today she didn't care. Today she wanted to get lost. Finnick didn't say anything just scooped her up in a quick and salty kiss. He deepened it and they retreated back to the house, snatched some cookies his mother had freshly baked, bullshitted about school to appear like friends catching up to his mom and then retired to his bed because Katniss "needed to study."

Katniss always needed to study. She'd leave here and in a month she'd relive this and be disgusted and curse Finnick out and retreat into herself and he wouldn't quite understand but he wouldn't question it either. That was Katniss.

His mom never questioned it and maybe in her warped state of loss she knew too. It was easier for the grieving to throw morality out of the window. Easy to turn a blind eye to things that would otherwise incite anger and pain and betrayal and so, perhaps she knew.

"Kat …," he breathed out her name. She fingered his wife beater.

"Finn like my _Adventure Time_ hero," it was so cheesy but it got him every time. In another time and place this would've been the ideal coupling. Because although Katniss wasn't a straight-A student she was beloved as her school's savior of soccer. She scored all the best goals and dived in and dirtied her jerseys and muddied up her cleats. She was _good_ too good.

When they were done with their business he cradled her for a while and spoke into her hair and kissed the nape of her neck. A promise, it was a promise.

"How was therapy?"

"Same old, same old, talked about my mom and Prim and how pissed I was … mentioned you … Pee—mentioned you and the others."

"You were going to say Peeta," Finnick looked at her questioningly.

"Yeah but I'm not taking it there because it's awkward, because he's practically like your long lost brother."

"There's _nothing_ between us this is just to—"

"I know mend things," and when she left she immediately purchased the most expensive concealer she could to cover up the hickeys on her neck, because there was nothing to it or between them.

Author's Notes: These chapters won't exceed more than 800-1000 words at a time. Reason being? I want to test myself and see how much I can convey in these small "bite sized" increments as I'd like to call them. Read and review. It's gonna get heavy and Peeta _will_ find out. Eventually. And don't worry Finnick and Kat won't be a couple or … will they? Never know with this Kat.


End file.
